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If the Orlando shooting were assisted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in any way, it would be nothing new. The FBI has conducted many terrorist sting operations involving their own informants who pose as Al Qaeda or ISIS handlers.

In Omar Mateen’s case, it was revealed that he was under FBI investigation on two separate occasions and was interviewed by them twice. According to the New York Daily News, the FBI “introduced him to confidential informants, spied on his communications and followed him.”

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The Intercept reported on very similar cases in Miami – around the same time that they were investigating Mateen – where the FBI used informants to encourage people of questionable mental capacity to agree to commit terrorist attacks and who were eventually arrested on terrorism charges:

For more than a year ending in April — a time during which investigators will now be looking for any clues from Mateen that might have been missed — the FBI in Miami focused on a counterterrorism sting that targeted James Medina, a homeless man with mental problems.

An FBI informant recorded conversations with Medina in which he expressed interest in attacking a Jewish community center. Medina did not have weapons or connections to international terrorists. In fact, he was known in homeless circles, not terrorism ones.

“C’mon, man, no terrorist is homeless,” Rick Wallace, who volunteered to serve lunch to homeless people in South Florida, told Local 10 ABC investigative reporter Bob Norman. “Who did he not threaten? He was insane.”

According to the FBI’s affidavit, the informant, not Medina, came up with the idea of crediting the planned attack to the Islamic State.

“You can do all that,” Medina told the informant. “Yeah, we can print up or something and make it look like it’s ISIS here in America. Just like that.”